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Chiropractic Benefits

Why Chiropractic Should Be A Part of Your Everyday Life

Most people don’t even think about visiting a chiropractor until they’ve sustained an injury or need a quick adjustment to help ease pain. They typically see it as a treatment for injuries or conditions that they’ve already sustained, not as a preventative health care option. And while chiropractic care is an exceptional way to treat existing conditions and injuries, that is only half of the picture. It is also a viable health care approach that is effective in improving overall wellness. There are some very compelling reasons to incorporate chiropractic into your everyday life. Chiropractic can:

Help lower your risk of injury

When the spine is out of alignment it can put stress on other parts of the body including ligaments and joints. Regular chiropractic care helps keep the spine aligned thus reducing your risk of injury.

Elevate your mood

Chiropractic treatment can help to balance your hormones. It increases the feel-good hormone dopamine while decreasing the stress hormone cortisol. This makes it an exceptional drug free option for patients who suffer with anxiety, depression, or mood swings. As part of your treatment you chiropractor may also recommend dietary and lifestyle changes that can help even more.

Make you feel more energetic

When your spine is out of alignment your entire body suffers. You can feel stiff, sore, and fatigues. Most patients report feeling invigorated after their treatment. They can move easier and have much more energy. Part of this is due to the effect the treatment has on the body as well as the hormones that are released that provide a boost in your mood.

Help you sleep better

More than 60 percent of people in the United States, both children and adults, report having problems with sleep. Studies show that chiropractic can actually help with insomnia allowing you to get better, more restful, and more beneficial sleep.

The combination of pain alleviation, increased flexibility, and overall wellness as well as stress relieving properties allow your body and mind to relax so that you can fall asleep easier and stay asleep. Incorporating chiropractic care into your everyday routine can help you get a better night’s sleep.

Strengthen your immune system

Studies show that patients who receive regular chiropractic care have a significantly stronger immune system than patients who don’t see a chiropractor. In fact, one of the most significant studies to date that explored the connection between regular chiropractic care and a strong immune system was conducted by Dr. Ronald Pero, Ph. D. of New York’s Preventive Medicine Institute where he was the chief of cancer research. He was also a professor of medicine at New York University. The study, which spanned several years, found that patients who received chiropractic care on a regular basis had a 200 percent greater immune competence than non-chiropractic patients.

Manage your pain

Chronic pain as well as pain from injuries or certain conditions respond very well to regular chiropractic care. Any type of pain can negatively impact your quality of life, but pain medications can have unpleasant side effects that can be debilitating. It doesn’t help that many pain medications are highly addictive.

Chiropractic treatments offer a natural remedy for pain that is medication free. What’s more, regular treatments work to fix the cause of the problem so that the issue can be permanently resolved.

Make you feel better without medication

Chiropractic treatments are non-invasive and drug free. It uses the body’s own healing properties to naturally address issues and achieve results. It is low risk and very effective, treating the cause of problems, not just the symptoms the way pain medication does.

When you look at all of the benefits of regular chiropractic care and realize that those results can be achieved naturally, it’s easy to see why more people are incorporating it into their regular health care routines.

Acute Injury

Acute Injury Management: What Does the Acronym PRICE Stand For?

When dealing with a sports injury or similar type of injury, many people are familiar with the R.I.C.E. protocol for injury care. R.I.C.E. stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation and has long been used when treating everything from sprained ankles to banged up knees. With acute injury patients, experts recommend adding “P” for protection because protection of the area it absolutely vital in the healing process. It is important that this is implemented as soon after the injury as possible and it should be maintained for anywhere from 24 hours to 72 hours afterwards. Of course, this depends on the severity of the injury.

P is for Protection: Injuries hurt and pain can be a good thing because it prevents you from further injuring that area. It encourages you to protect it.

It is important to listen to your body and protect the injured area through full or partial immobilization and restricted use. The way you do this depends on the body part.

An arm or shoulder injury can be protected with the use of a sling. An ankle injury may require a brace or splint and you may have to avoid or limit weight bearing for a while. This means using crutches a walker, or a cane.

R is for Rest: The body needs rest in order to heal. This could mean complete rest, but in many cases it means what is known as “relative rest.” This means that it allows for enough rest to heal but is not completely restrictive which could slow or inhibit recovery.

This means avoiding activities that are stressful to the area to the point that they cause pain or that they might compromise healing. Many times, though, some movement is a good thing, even beneficial. Some gentle movements can actually speed recovery.

Isometric contractions of the muscles and joints that surround the injury and even some range of motion exercises can help. The key is to keep the movements gentle and to listen to your body for guidance on how much and how far to push.

I is for Ice: Cryotherapy, or cold treatments can come in the form of actual ice, or there can be other types such as a cold soak. When treating acute injuries at home, the best known, and probably easiest way is to put some crushed ice in a freezer bag with a zip lock closure and wrap it in a small towel to keep the pack from directly touching the skin.

Frozen vegetables, like green beans, peas, or edamame work well too – just remember to use the towel as a barrier between the skin and the pack. You should not use the pack more than 10 to 15 minutes as a time. The recommended cycle is 10 to 15 minutes on and 1 to 2 hours off.

In some cases, you may not be able to apply ice directly to the site. In those cases, you can apply the pack at the joint above the affected area. For instance, a tightly wrapped ankle can still benefit from ice, you just apply the ice pack to the back on the knee on the same leg.

C is for Compression: A compression wrap can offer mild support and reduce swelling. Typically, an elastic bandage is used to compress or apply pressure to the injured tissue.

When applying a compression bandage, start it several inches below the area that is injured. It should be applied directly to your skin.

Use some tension as you wrap, but not to the point that it cuts off circulation (characterized by tingling or numbness and the soft tissue should not change color). Wrap the bandage in a figure eight configuration or spiral, depending on the area, stopping a few inches above the injury.

E is for Elevation: When an injured joint or extremity is not elevated, fluid can pool in the area and swelling can occur. This can lead to increased pain and limited range of motion. Elevation helps prevent these things from happening and can even help to speed up recovery.

The key to elevation is positioning the injured area at a level that is above the heart. The most effective way to accomplish this is to keep the area elevated as much as possible while awake and prop it up with pillows while sleeping for at least the first 24 to 48 hours. Some injuries may require more time though, so listen to your body.

How Chiropractic Benefits Cheerleaders

When we think of cheerleaders we usually think of pretty girls in colorful outfits, pom poms in hand, cheering for their team. They are way more than that though. Cheerleaders are serious athletes.

It has taken a while, but the public is finally starting to realize just how true this is. Data collected by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research (NCCSIR), between 1982 and 2009 cheerleaders made up for more than 70 percent of catastrophic injuries in women’s college sports. At the high school level that number exceeded 60 percent.

Some claim that this high percentage of injuring among cheerleaders to be due to lax regulations at the state level. Some states refuse to recognize cheerleading as a sport and organizations such as the NCAA don’t either.

This leaves an already potentially dangerous activity without proper oversight of the government or regulating agencies. It also means that some people who manage cheer squads and organize competitions are not required to get the same coaching and safety training standards that those in other sports do.

Since chiropractic treats the whole body through not just structurally via spinal adjustments, but also through soft tissue techniques, patients can receive complete care after an injury and during rehabilitation. Cheerleaders are finding that chiropractic care provides numerous benefits and can even make them better athletes.

It helps to improve range of motion

Chiropractic care helps to improve a person’s range of motion which in turn helps to prevent injury and relieve the pain of injury. Chiropractic is growing in its popularity within the field of sports medicine because of its effectiveness. A 2010 study published in The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association showed that chiropractic made a significant difference in performance.

It helps to prevent injury

Even when no injury is present, athletes can benefit from chiropractic care. This is especially true in high impact sports like cheerleading where athletes push their bodies beyond limits through acrobatics and some of the strenuous tricks that they do in the course of their sport. Chiropractic helps to loosen muscles, making them more pliable and flexible, thus less prone to injury.

It helps to relieve pain from injury

A study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in March 2011 shows that chiropractic for pain relief can alleviate the pain of hamstring injury. The study was conducted over the course of a football season and involved 43 professional cheerleaders for football various football teams.

Throughout the study the cheerleaders received specific exercise intervention. At the end of the study those who had reported pain due to a hamstring injury experienced significant pain reduction after receiving chiropractic treatment.

It can increase physical strength

While chiropractic is typically considered a therapy for alleviating skeletal and muscular complaints, a study in 2011 showed that it can also improve physical strength. The study involved judo athletes competing at the national level who used cervical spinal manipulative therapy (SMT). The final results of the study showed a 16 percent improvement in grip strength among the athletes who received only three SMT sessions.

The case for chiropractic care for athletes is very strong. It can help during training, recovery from injury, rehabilitation, and at every point in between. Although cheerleaders are still in their infancy of being recognized as serious athletes, the case for chiropractic care as a viable sports medicine therapy to improve performance and recover from injury is significant. The benefits that cheerleaders can receive from this type of therapy, as we can see here, can really give them something to cheer about both on the field and off.

This article is copyrighted by Blogging Chiros LLC for its Doctor of Chiropractic members and may not be copied or duplicated in any manner including printed or electronic media, regardless of whether for a fee or gratis without the prior written permission of Blogging Chiros, LLC.